Weeds Season 5 (last 6 episodes)
7/10 stars
It stopped being even remotely realistic a few seasons ago. I only continue with it because I know the characters and it is on Netflix “Watch Now”. And to see what insanity Kevin Nealon is going to do next. Without my history with it more like 5/10 stars.
Broken Flowers
5/10 stars
One skin-deep stereotype after another. This movie tries really hard to be meaningful and deep but just ends up being trite and ridiculous. I felt sorry for the great cast.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
7/10 stars
Inventive, if over-the-top. In another universe I could easily be in love with Kate Winslet, which probably buoyed my rating a tick or two. Not a great movie but the “erase your ex” concept was inventive.
Tudors Season 2 (Episode 1)
6/10
I really want to like and get into this but their pandering for ratings with salacious content is just too silly. A shame, because it has so much potential. The first season, at least, compelled me to research and learn a lot more about the principals.
Clash of the Titans (1981)
6/10
Purely nostalgia value, as this was a favourite when I was a little boy. Not a good movie, and the effects are horrendously dated. Enjoyed watching it tho.
Good Will Hunting
8/10
Really nice little movie. I’m a sucker for feel-good stories that at least flirt with being realistic and this does. Great writing; its easy to forget Affleck + Damon are pretty talented guys with some of the crap they’ve done over the past decade.
The Insider
9/10
Wow, really so good. Manipulative in using their easy black hat villain to the hilt – the tobacco companies – but everything about this movie is otherwise engrossing. Russell Crowe and Al Pacino really show their class here. Christopher Plummer was great in a supporting role, too.
Ken Burns: The War: A Necessary War
4/10
When I was in my early 20′s I thought Ken Burns was great. And I suppose as an entry/survey level teller of history he is. But watching the first episode of this makes me seriously question the depth and insight he brings to his topics. For someone who knows a lot about a subject – as I do about World War 2 – this was abysmally shallow.
Blade Runner
7/10
Good, solid sci-fi movie but grossly overrated relative to its mystique. I must assume that the cult popularity it enjoys is because it was thematically and photographically ahead of the curve in the early 1980′s. Today it is nothing special, if a good, solid sci-fi flick.
The Fly (1958)
6/10
Horror is not my favourite genre, but I’m trying to watch some old horror movies to better understand how it has evolved. This was pretty good. It hasn’t aged well, but it is a very interesting framing of late 1950′s perceptions of science, humanity and morality. Thoughtful and intellectually horrifying, without being gratuitous.
True Lies
8/10
I prolly like this more than most. While it starts going off the rails with the “send the wife on a phony secret mission” plot, the dynamics between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Arnold (yes, it seems an unlikely duo, but the writing and acting are both pitch-perfect for what this movie is) was just lovely. This is a better rating than it deserves, but I enjoyed the first half immensely.
A Very Long Engagement
9.5/10
Wow. Just wow. Beautiful period romance. The only thing that prevented it from getting the elusive 10/10 was the gore related to some of the war scenes. I don’t like gore. I get why they did it, it fits in context, but it was icky.
Letters from Iwo Jima
9/10
Very, very good film. I particularly like the theme – World War 2 from the Japanese perspective – so I prolly like it a little better than it deserves. But fuzzy history and details aside – the inter-relationships between the Japanese leaders were total fiction – this was just a lovely little movie.
The Fall of Fujimoro
8/10
Excellent documentary. Fujimoro was the president of Peru during the 1990′s, a Peruvian born Japanese. He transformed the country from a terror-ridden cesspool into an emerging, progressive nation while cleaning up the terror elements. The twist? He did so by couping his own government, sanctioning the intelligence apparatus to use any means necessary to curb terror in violation of human rights, and – depending on your interpretation of available information – tried to steal a second (and illegal) re-election. I found myself thinking a lot of his means were justified given the situation he inherited and the results he achieved, but it is certainly a deadly little game and a classic case of judging the choices by the result, not the choices themselves.
Broadcast News
5/10
Horribly dated. Once upon a time this was considered a good film but it screams “cheezy ’80s” and doesn’t have the timeless bits necessary to overcome that. Without question I could pick any 1970s or 1980s era James L. Brooks film immediately out of a movie clip line-up. And no, that is not a compliment.
Amadeus
8/10
Excellent movie, much better than I remember it as a child. Again the history is fuzzy – Salieri is highly fictionalized and the relationship they portrayed with Mozart is complete rubbish – but it serves as a nice bit of storytelling that frames Mozart’s historical impact effectively, while doing the period justice.
Three Days of the Condor
8/10
A little slow at times but the best of what movies used to be: action and thrills with a real cerebral edge and presence of morality. I really liked how they handled the Robert Redford-Faye Dunaway relationship. The situationality of her embracing him felt a little contrived but the nature of their interaction and connection rang really true. The best scene is between Robert Redford and Max von Sydow at the end. A nice twist, super juxtaposition and great acting by ol’ Max in particular. A solid thriller.
I know, how can one guy watch so many movies in a week, right? Works wonders to pass the time and keep me from getting bored while working during non-business hours.
